Blog Archives

YOGA, AUTHENTICITY AND AUTHORITY

1/30/2020

One of the ways that an advanced state of yoga is described is as kaivalya - to stand alone: to be in a state of 'all-one-ness'. Not lonely, but whole and integrated. The more we can establish ourselves in such a place, the easier it is to act authentically, attuned to the guidance of the pilot of our conscience; less impeded, influenced or swayed by the accumulated veilings of our conditioned ideas.

A foundational teaching in yoga - from Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad Gītā - is that what we do and how we do it is basically up to us. Our actions are our responsibility. At the same time, we have no control over the outcomes or fruits of our actions. Still, we do know from experience that certain types of action tend to bring ‘bitter fruit’ or ‘barren harvests’. With practice, when we pay closer attention, we may notice that when we act from a place of confused motivation, it tends to bring more confusion; when we act from a place of pain and woundedness, it tends to beget more pain. So, even though we have no control over outcomes, we can still learn from experience and take care to avoid needless suffering. And, we have to act. No one rests outside the field of action even for a moment. The mere maintenance of our bodily existence obliges us to act.

Action is inevitable.
When something is inevitable, the yoga teachings urge us to be with it as skilfully as possible. If something is inevitable, no point getting down about it. That will just reduce our chance of navigating the situation as well as we might. So yoga tells us: whatever comes, meet it as best you can, with steady presence, with the most balance you can muster. As far as possible, meet it with even-sightedness, resisting the tendency to lapse into prejudiced patterns of perception. Set yourself up to engage as skilfully as is possible.

We often have a lot more agency than we allow ourselves to admit.

Yoga reminds us that our life, our experience, is our responsibility.

We never know what life will bring to us, but we can, at least to some degree, determine how we meet it.

Yoga urges us to be the author of our own life. To let our life be an authentic expression of our uniqueness. Yoga urges us to practice authenticity, to live in true, authentic rhythm, respecting the cycles and seasons of life, working with nature, within and around us, to do our dharma, the action that supports lokasaṅgraha, the wellbeing of the whole.

When we practice, we may realise that sometimes, perhaps often, we are not really the author of our own lives, we are not claiming authorship as wholly as we might. Sometimes, we may be a ‘co-author’, our decisions and apparent ‘choices’ being significantly influenced by parental, familial, or societal forces. And sometimes, we may even abdicate authorship altogether, lapsing into autopilot, or a less conscious place, where we are just a minor character in a narrative foisted upon us by the influences and currents of the time: of the people, media, and advertising around us, and by the inertia of our accumulated habits and conditionings.

Yoga reminds us: you are the sovereign of your life. A famous proverb in Sanskṛt states that the sovereign is not shaped by the time, but rather the sovereign shapes the time. Yes, we are each a small speck in the cosmos. We can perhaps only be a co-author, with the larger forces of Nature, life, existence. Nonetheless, when we claim responsibility, when we accept that we are each the captain of the ship in the journey of our own life, we can strengthen our authority and our authenticity.

As we practice living the authentic expression of our soul’s deep calling, we can become more established on the ‘seat’ or ‘āsana’ of yoga: a steady, sustainable, easeful place of self-trust and authentic expression, of authority for our own experience.

And this is part of what Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad Gītā teaches us as he explains karma yoga, the yoga of action: the practical way to, as best we can, make all that we do dharma - the action that supports lokasaṅgraha - the wellbeing of the whole: of all parts of ourselves, of all parts of the field of our experience, and beyond.

0 Comments

ECONO-BEE

1/29/2020

0 Comments

ECONO-BEE
On how ecology - the understanding of the ecos: the environment, the resources - is the foundation for economy - good management of the ecos. On learning from other species, especially bees, and pollinators more generally, considered emissaries of the Sun, the Source of Life by the ancient Egyptians, and by me, too. On the bee capsule at Barefeet biofeedback in Samara, Costa Rica. And on the sufficiency economy advocated by the 9th King of the Thai Chakri dynasty.

In my recent article ‘Into the Grey’, I mentioned that when I saw Satish Kumar speak on Soil, Soul and Society, he said many things that have stayed with me in the years since. That day, Satish related how on a previous occasion, he had been invited to speak at the London School of Economics. On taking the dais, Satish asked the audience who was there from the Ecology department.
No one raised their hand.
“We don’t have an Ecology department here Mr Kumar.”
Now I paraphrase Satish’s response:
“Mmm, no Ecology department, in a school of Economics… something’s amiss here, no? Something is not really adding up.
Economia - management of the ecos, of the resources. Ecologia - understanding of those resources.
There can be no economy (good management of the resources) without ecology (understanding of the resources).”
Indeed.

Some politicians and media voices repeat again and again how ‘we need a strong economy’. Sometimes, in what I would say is a spectacularly flawed and fallacious way, they suggest that we need to prioritise ‘the economy’ over all other concerns. Making such assertions, they speak as if ‘economic growth’, or having more and more of this imagined construct called money displayed in figures on a screen, will enable us to have a better life. We are strange creatures us humans. Surely, ecology, and looking after the long-term wellbeing of the environment is a necessary foundation for a functioning and healthy economy. We risk there being no ecos to enjoy if we do not look after it.

This is one of the reasons why I would like to ask that we ‘change the climate’ of our discourse around the environment. I was born in 1977. When I started secondary school, undeniable facts of environmental degradation were already well-known. Deforestation was decimating species, weakening the resilience and adaptability of the overall ecos and biosphere. Industrial and chemical pollution was known to cause all sorts of respiratory problems, diseases and ailments in humans. We knew that chemical pesticides and fertilisers were not viable long-term ways to provide nourishing food. We knew that industrial and chemical pollution was making fresh drinking water scarcer. We knew we were soiling our own nest. In the late 1980s, the ‘green movement’ was ‘on’/‘in trend’, at least that’s how it seemed to me. As I recall it, in England then, the Body Shop, with its high profile campaigns Against Animal Testing and for Recycling, Reducing, Re-using, was huge. It seemed that we had the awareness that big changes needed to happen. Thirty years later, the foundational problems persist. We still rely on energy sources that ravage and pollute our environments and make our home less healthy, and in the case of nuclear fission, more precarious. We still use an outdated method of food cultivation and distribution which may boost some of those ‘economic’ figures on a screen for some big companies, but which deplete the soil and people’s health. There have been many encouraging developments, but these underlying problems remain. All the while, the ‘climate change industry’ has grown. And with it, the ‘climate change argument/debate’ in which a lot of hot air is pumped out as people argue about opinions and interpretations of data.

For me, these arguments are somewhat beside the point. Whether or not human pollution and burning of fossil fuels will lead to however many degrees of global warming is not the real issue. I would say that the real issue is not speculative. The real issue is that as a species we are not living in harmony with our environment. We are not living anywhere near as healthily as we might. Consequently, we are spewing into the atmosphere habits that perpetuate and entrench needless suffering.

Even amongst the pundits who go on about the importance of a ‘strong economy’, some of them also say that health is the ultimate wealth and agree that without health we cannot be happy. When ‘economic growth’ or ‘economy-centric’ policies come with a significant cost to all our health: polluting earth, water, soil and sky, it certainly doesn’t look like a strong ‘economy’ in the true sense of the word. It looks rather like gross mismanagement of the ecos.

So what to do?
Perhaps we can learn from other species. Perhaps we can learn from the observation of nature, as our ancestors who bequeathed us the great, practical riches of our wisdom traditions did. Perhaps we can consider what I will refer to as Econo-bee.

Let me explain.
I’m on the beach in Samara, Costa Rica, talking to a local nature lover. As our conversation goes on she says, “I think I need to take you to the bees.”
“The bees?” I wonder. She then tells me a bit about the bee capsule at Barefeet Biofeedback and the story behind it - I summarise now, and resort to layman’s terms.

“It has long been a legend,” she told me, “that those who keep bees never have asthma, nor do they suffer from other respiratory problems.”
Was this just what people in the England I grew up in - a place largely severed from much of its ancestral wisdom - called ‘an old wives tale’? Or was it one of those old tales that actually contain much truth, much ‘gold’, much practical wisdom?
Well, I guess you guessed that it’s the latter.
In Russia, scientists started researching this. They found that the bees maintained such high air quality (antiviral, antibiotic, anti-inflammatory) within their hives, and such a harmonious frequency, that the beekeepers’ exposure to this ‘super air’ and ‘symphonic field’ (my lay terms) was giving them significant health boosts. The Russian researchers then started successfully treating people with asthma by having them ‘be with the bees’ and breathe the air from the hives.

Meanwhile, in Costa Rica, a young man, still a teenager, has a vision, of how we need to save the bees and how they can help save us. He started looking after local bees and then built a capsule of the type I would soon experience. A capsule similar to those used by ancient Egyptian kings and queens who would meditate or rest in them. While the ancient Egyptians worshipped Horus and Ra, Solar or Sky deities, they also worshipped the bees as the tears of the Sun. And with very good sense too. Without the Sun, we are nothing, no life on Earth. Without the Sun’s emissaries, the great pollinators who allow the earth to give and grow nourishing vegetation, we cannnot survive. No food, no life. The bees were recognised as emissaries of ‘God’, in the sense of the Source of Life, and as deities to be honoured, respected, worshipped. Worshipping the bees means honouring the web of life, respecting all parts of the ecos. Worshipping the bees, the kings and queens would also put themselves in close proximity to them. Which is what I got to experience.

Yoga, traditional Indian systems of knowledge and philosophy, and now modern science all recognise that life is pulsation. All living beings are pulsating, vibrating at a certain frequency. Humans who spend time around animals often notice that the animals are quite adept at sensing a human’s ‘vibe’.

When a person enters and lies down in the bee capsule, we are close enough to the hives that our energetic frequency enters the bees’ field. We enter a field in which the bees are constantly working to ensure harmony. The bees start working. They start ‘doing their duty’. True to their nature, they do their dharma, the authentic action which supports the wellbeing of the whole. When we lay down in the capsule, the bees sense us, and ‘do a scan’. Each bee then works to re-harmonise the field, and so help harmonise our field and bring us into resonance, into cohesive balance and harmony. Natural medicine fit for a Pharaoh.

I found my time with the bees wonderfully healing, and it left many layers of imprint, including this idea of econo-bee.

Economic models that ignore a foundation of ecological health are deeply flawed. One way this is evidenced is by how our so called ‘economic’ model has failed to keep up with changing reality and understandings. In relation to food for example, it is based on systems of ‘production’ and methods of distribution that seemed a good idea in the years after the second world war, but which have not made as much sense for decades now. Modern science has long since recognised that harmony and diversity are hallmarks of long-term, sustainable, antifragile, natural systems, and that mass-scale chemical agriculture is not sustainable. Life is constant change. A viable, sustainable system is one that is adaptable, one that is responsive, one that owns and knows that there is no ‘fixed way’. The appropriate response is a thing of the particular moment. A strong economy is one based on the reality of ecology: that recognises the cyclical nature of life, that is diverse, locally variant, adaptable. It does not put all its eggs into one, or just a few baskets.

Human craziness can appear to be deeply entrenched, a habit with a lot of inertia. But the bees remind us, there is another way. So what do I mean by econo-bee, or learning from the bees’ society?

First, the bees take responsiility for their own health and harmony. When in balance and harmony, they then contribute to the wellbeing of the wider community and beyond. They contribute to the wellbeing of the whole, a principle known in Sanskṛt as lokasaṅgraha.

Sometimes people talk about a supposedly ‘major’ difference between political conservatives who think that the way to wellness is personal responsibility and to ‘pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps’, and socialists, who believe that the government or state should provide a safety net and ensure certain opportunities and services for all. I do not belong to any particular political party, but neither do I see these ideas as having to be contradictory. Rather, could we recognise them as two mutually complementary aspects of a healthy society?

I certainly agree that we each have to take responsibility for our actions and motivations. But at the same time, it is normal in life that sometimes we will need ‘a little help from our friends’. We no longer live in tribes of a couple of hundred people. Many of the things we do, like travel significant distances, like undergo expensive medical treatments, like gather to study, work, play with people from different places, are things that many, many people are involved in. They impact the whole, global community. It makes sense to collaborate to provide public transport, education and health care. It makes it more efficient for almost everyone.

So how about we learn from the bees? Take care of ourselves and our homes so we are better able to share positively with the wider world, so we are better able to help those in need. Sooner or later, we are likely to be in need one way or another. Even if we are not, when we act for the good of the whole, lokasaṅgraha, each of us is rewarded, each of us gets to live in a healthier, more harmonious hive of creative possibility, of vibrance, congruence and greater efficiency.

Looking after ourselves and our home also means looking after the bees, means looking after the soil, the air and water quality. Scientific research is showing that organic, local produce is vastly more nutritious than the misleadingly and I would say somewhat criminally named ‘conventional’ produce grown with chemical fertilisers and pesticides that have been ‘conventional’ only since the Second World War. Nature is amazingly abundant. We may trash our home to the degree that it is uninhabitable for humans, Nature will survive, no problem. I would suggest that if we are to survive and thrive as we really can, we need to shed this artificial lab coat trying to mask our insecurities, we need to shed this idea of thinking we can govern, dominate, control Nature. How about we abandon the delusion that this Earth is our possession? And then enjoy the lightness and spaciousness of a new way? A way of collaboration with Nature. That works with its diversity, its resilience, its beauty, that repectfully harnesses its abundance and munificence?

We have a lot of time-proven understanding of how to tend land sustainably, how to grow real food. It is our economic model that needs updating. The way of domination and exploitation does not work, has already malfunctioned. Our overly large scale and ultimately damaging and wasteful methods of cultivation and distribution need reform.

When I lived in Thailand, the 9th King of the Chakri dynasty, Bhumibol Adulyadej was still alive and the longest reigning monarch then on the earth. He was already elderly and not so active in public life as he had been. At that time - early 2000s - his major project, the idea that he had been advocating was the ‘sufficiency economy’. Thailand is a land of plenty. We should look after our abundant resources, feed ourselves, produce for our essential needs and then share, sell, export the surplus, engaging in mutually beneficial trade not from a place of need, but from a place of sufficiency, of ‘enoughness’. I am summarising this in broad brush strokes, but it appealed to me then, and it still does. Unlike its neighbours, Thailand was never colonised. The kings of the Chakri dynasty demonstrated a keen intuition and sage foresight when it came to long-term viability. I think in terms of the sufficiency economy model, King Bhumibol Adulyadej was continuing this legacy. I also think it’s a lot like the bees, the great pollinators revered by kings and queens of a much older great dynasty. First, they tend to the harmony of their immediate hive, or home. Then, healthy and vibrant, they go about spreading health and vibrance, pollinating, helping fertilise and distribute nutrients for the good of the whole land and its inhabitants of so many different species.

I would suggest that when we engage in practical efforts to reconnect to the soil, and to care for the pollinators, we will be able to see myriad ways to support a large human population from a place of vibrant harmony and abundance.

Here is a link to https://barefeetbiofeedback.com/ where I got to experience being with the bees like this.

0 Comments

Into the Grey

1/27/2020

2 Comments

For some time now I have been feeling to write an article about what I see as the need to go beyond divisive black and white thinking and step ‘into the grey’, to honestly, courageously wrestle with the nuance of reality and the complexity of life’s challenges.

Following my last newsletter, a couple of people contacted me asking if I might explain my views on travel, especially in the context of ‘climate’. It appears that for some people, air travel, along with eating meat, or accepting a plastic bag for example, has become something of a badge of dishonour. It has been placed on a ‘blacklist’ of banned items: ‘evil’ actions to be avoided, ‘irresponsible’ things that ‘should not be done’, ‘that should not be tolerated’… I feel rather that if anything should be ‘blacklisted’, it should be this type of extreme and reductive, absolutist attitude and its attendant sweeping blanket statements.

In recent times, I have noticed quite a lot of very extreme, polarising language in public discourse. I think we can do a lot better. I feel that exclusive, condemnatory or absolutist statements often block or limit the type of deeper deliberation and broader discussion that can help us move forwards to deal positively with the complex challenges we face as a species.

A foundational yoga teaching: sometimes that which would ordinarily be unconscionable is actually the appropriate action.

There is no list of ‘don’ts’ in yoga. If you see such a thing, it is a reductive interpretation of a subtler, more nuanced teaching. Yoga, like all the major traditional systems of Indian Art, Science and Knowledge, recognises that anything and everything in existence can be poison, anything and everything in existence can be medicine. It all depends: on the situation, the constitution, and the dose.

Another foundational teaching of Yoga: Life, Nature, is not black and white.

Life, Nature, is a realm of nuance in which there are always many, many more ways of looking at a question than from just two sides. There are infinite ‘sides’, shades, perspectives. So rather than dos and don’ts, rather than reductive lists and black and white thinking, yoga invites us into the grey: to wrestle with our conscience, to explore the ‘darklands’ that our conditioning may shield us from or blind us to.

With regard to the ‘climate’ or environment ‘issue’, for example, I had a powerful experience that showed me how much my prejudices or belief systems influenced how I perceived and even was able to perceive the issue.

A decade or so ago, I saw a film that was being promoted by the 350 organisation, (who were saying that we need to keep carbon parts per million below 350 if we are to survive as a species). The bigger message of the film, as it landed with me, was that we need to do a better job of looking after our home, this planet, that we need to start changing some of our inefficient and polluting habits: like shipping food hundreds and thousands of miles instead of eating predominatly local and seasonal food; like drinking water out of plastic bottles that are shipped hundreds or thousands of miles instead of investing in clean, healthy drinking water on tap all around the world, and so on.

Sympathetic to the film’s global message, I ‘swallowed’ its contents whole. Convinced of the good intentions of the makers and recognising from personal experience that many of the ideas they highlighted were real and true, I found myself easily persuaded by some of the other ideas that were novel to me. Enthusiastically, and with good intention, I sent an email encouraging all my friends and contacts to see this film and share its important message.

One of my friends wrote back asking, “Have you seen this other film James? You might want to have a look before you endorse this other one so unequivocally.” My friend pointed this out in a very humane way. He invited me to consider some additional perspectives. This was a man I met regularly and knew to be a person of integrity. I followed his tip and watched this other film. It presented a very different perspective on the issue, one that could perhaps be described as that of a ‘thinking skeptic’. This second film presented ideas that challenged some things I had previously felt quite convinced about. I also felt that its spirit went against certain ideals or values that for me ran much deeper than the particular arguments about ‘speculative science based on modelling’. I felt this second film ignored what for me was the bigger, underlying point, of our need to change the way we relate to ‘ecos’, to our home this Earth. I noticed though, that I watched this second film through very different eyes from the first, whose overall message by and large accorded with the ideas that I had brought with me to the cinema. When watching the second film, I noticed that my critical, analytical toolkit was instantly activated. As I was watching, I was instantaneously picking holes in its arguments. I was very aware of how certain things were being presented in a selective, partial, biased way. But what my friend’s prompting me to consider this other perspective left me with was an undeniable recognition that the first film had also presented things in a selective, partial, and yes, biased way. But as its general message accorded with my pre-existing sympathies and ‘alignments’, I had not examined all its arguments with anything like the same rigour as for the second film. This made me see that I too had been somewhat ‘selective’. It had been easy and expedient to align with a particular ‘side’. But this experience showed me that I had been deluding myself. Both ‘sides’ had the gall to present in a skewed way, in a manipulative, partial way. Both sides presented as ‘unassailable’ fact things which were really just ‘pieces’ of a much bigger and more complex picture. The inconvenient truth* of the matter was not black and white. It was grey. The truth was in the grey. (*The two films I saw were not Al Gore’s film of this name, though both did reference it if I recall correctly. The film associated with the 350 organisation was called The Age of Stupid. I do not recall the name of the second film, and the emails are in a now many-years obsolete account I no longer have access to).

The Truth of things is grey.

A little while after this, I had the privilege of meeting Satish Kumar speaking on Soil, Soul and Society in my hometown in the North of England. Satish gave a memorable talk and facilitated a day which has been of great lasting value for me. One of the particularly memorable messages from what he shared that day was:
“Let us make all isms wasms!”
In other words, let us make divisive, black and white thinking a thing of the past. An ism is a reaction. I’ll mention feminism as an example. Yes, I’m a man. Yes, I’m a ‘white’ man (at least by some people’s standards) in his fifth decade on this Earth. However, I did study British, American, French and Italian feminism and women’s writing when I was an undergraduate and have read several of the classics of feminist literature, so I will dare to mention this ism as an example and I do not do so casually. Like any ism, feminism could be seen to be a reaction to an imbalance, a terrible imbalance. The feminist, or women’s, movement has brought many great benefits, has helped redress some aspects of this imbalance. However, sometimes more extreme voices calling themselves ‘feminist’ go against what I understand to be one of the core principles of earlier feminism: the giving to people who are ‘different’ from, or other than, the dominant/mainstream/establishment the opportunity to live wholly and authentically, bringing the depth and value of their unique gifts to a healthier, wholler, more balanced society. More generally, sometimes, in reacting against the imbalance, the ism becomes ‘anti’ ‘the other’. As soon as an ideology is ‘against’ the other, is anti, is negating, I would say that it reduces vastly its capacity to bring deeper healing and sustainable balance. It risks becoming another type of tyrant. As one of my Indian teachers says, “the crusader gets crusaded.” If we are ‘fighting for peace’, we have to take especial care not to lose our attunement to the ways of peacefulness. We get good at what we practice. Fighting and campaiging we can become ‘good’ at protesting and resisting. Well and good. Sometimes this is exactly what is needed. But there is a danger: that we become entrenched in the ways of the ‘opponent’ or protestor, and that we divert, leak and squander energy that needs to be harnessed for positive, constructive growth.

There is a risk of becoming ‘revolutionaries’ in the most tragic sense of the word. If in railing against the system, we fight it at its own game, and we take on its divisive language, tactics and practices, we take on that which we profess we want to change. There is a very real risk that we can become alternative versions of that which we were so convinced was wrong.

The challenge then is to come out of this ‘revolutionary heritage’, out of the pattern of ‘fighting against’ and overthrowing what we deem to be corrupt, only to replace the corrupt tyranny with another, similar one with a different name, of a different flavour.
The challenge is to be an ‘evolutionary’.
What do I mean?
To be a warrior courageous enough to resist the temptations of retributive stances, punishing policies and reactionary ways. To learn from the past without being burdened or trapped by it. To heal and make whole our inheritance, by drawing out the gifts we can learn from its excesses, its stumblings, its imbalances. By moving forwards in new ways: with new language, with tactics of reconciliation and inclusion, that resist the incendiary, condemnatory, extreme polarities; with practices that promote deep listening, deep witnessing, and genuine consideration of views that we would perhaps reflexively reject or recoil from.

This challenge asks us to bring forth the effort to work together in a more consensual way. It asks us to acknowledge the interwoven complexity and nuance of life. It asks us to abandon the ‘blame game’ and the type of language that can so often put people on the defensive. It requires us to actively remember that we will have a much better chance of fostering a ‘better world’ when we make the patient and courageous effort to embody and share what we really seek, rather than attack what we seek to be rid of.

If we can muster the patience and presence to get past our habits of triggering and inflammatory words, and of allowing ouselves to be easily triggered and inflamed, surely we can access an arena of more fertile and vitalising discourse. If we can inhabit a space of honest discourse more calmly, really, there is so much common ground for us to explore and expand together.

So, all that said, when it comes to travel, I would say that pretty much like anything else it cannot be reduced to a one-size-fits-all policy, to black and white dos and don’ts. I do not think that one-size-fits-all blanket black and white policies can ever bring the sustainable peace, wholeness and harmony that I think is our deeper longing and true potential.
What I can do, if you are interested, is invite you to travel with me into the grey. I can share something about why I value travel so much and how I think travel, even sometimes air travel, can actually be part of a solution: encouraging the type of global perspective and collaborative vision and efforts that the challenges we face require. I’ll continue that in the next article Traveling into the Grey, Part 2.

2 Comments

YOGA, AUTHENTICITY AND AUTHORITY

ECONO-BEE

Into the Grey

Author

Categories

Archives

Categories